Wrought Iron Architectural Metalwork
Designed & manufactured in the U.K
By: Chris Topp & Co Ltd, North Yorkshire
Tel: 01845 501415
Opened in 1871 Roberts Park is within the World Heritage Site of Saltaire and Grade II listed. The unusual opportunity to create a distinctive bandstand as a focal point & enhancement of the landscape architecture came through the parks refurbishment programme. The original bandstand, recorded only in archive photographs, was very modest and given the exceptional character of the Saltaire village an attempt to reconstruct it was considered not necessarily appropriate. The architect developed the outline size & theme of the new bandstand informed by a series of consultation programmes with the local community & close cooperation with conservation & heritage representatives. The emerging ‘Park Vision’ was refined into three themes of which the ‘Saltaire Flower & Musical Delights’ received consensus. As specialist ironwork designers our role was to apply this concept to the outline proposal of the bandstand, fully detailing all aspects of its decoration & construction.
The theme was really interesting to work with, possibly because it was established from sketches by children at Saltaire Primary School. The class, when asked to draw their thoughts on ‘what does music outdoors mean to you’ & ‘What is a bandstand’, conceived the idea of combining musical instruments with the parks foliage. The result a horn that blew flowers & leaves in place of notes! This concept had the added benefit of a direct reference to Saltaire’s heritage, with flowers being a distinctive decorative element within the local buildings. We expanded on this assembling four capital designs, each based on a casual reference associating the instrument to the plant.
• Horns & Saxifrage
• Violins & Maple
• Cymbals & (blue) Bells
• Harps & Shamrocks
Although standard practise is to cast the capital decoration as part of the column we instead applied a combination of forged & cast components for greater visual effect & volume. Continuing this approach into the balustrade attention is focused on the flowering posts, an abstract version of the horn blowing a flower design replicated from a nearby building. The three dimensional forgework was an important part of our proposal to create a distinctive bandstand aimed at appealing to & engaging the attention of people of all ages using the park.
The roof was made and installed by Peters Roofing, made in 0.8 gauge VM natural zinc laid single welt with beaded edges. The finial is constructed by soldering all the segments internally and beading the edge details.
Kind Comments for Robert’s Park
I understand that your company was the main driving force behind the design, build and installation of the new Bandstand at Robert's Park Saltaire. It really is a magnificent achievement and one in which the whole village can take great pride.
Hammonds Saltaire Band was proud and privileged to play the opening concert on Saturday and all of us enjoyed the day immensely. The weather was of course huge factor in the success of the day but all those present could not fail to be impressed with the superb work which has been carried on throughout the Park to both new and old structures. The Bandstand especially is a triumph.
On behalf of the Band I'd like to offer our sincere congratulations on a job very well done.
John Myles - May 2010
